St. Maarten says it values literacy, but do we actually know how literate we are?

St. Maarten celebrates literacy, promotes reading in schools, organizes writing competitions and trains educators to strengthen reading culture. The message from Government and education stakeholders is consistent: literacy is vital. But during Literacy Month, a more uncomfortable question deserves attention. Do we actually know how literate St. Maarten is today?

The answer, surprisingly, is no. The most widely cited national literacy figure that can be verified for St. Maarten is 93.8 percent, and it dates back to 2011. The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly carried that figure in its country information for St. Maarten, identifying 2011 as the year of measurement. That means the number commonly used to describe the country's literacy level is now 15 years old.

That does not mean literacy has worsened. It does not mean it has improved either. It means that, based on the principal published statistics available, we cannot confidently put a current percentage on adult literacy in St. Maarten.

The old numbers looked encouraging

St. Maarten's Millennium Development Goals report offered another encouraging number based on the 2011 Census. It estimated an illiteracy rate of just 0.7 percent among young people aged 15 to 24, including 0.8 percent among males and 0.7 percent among females. The earlier baseline had been 2 percent.

There is an important qualification, however. That figure did not come from sitting young people down and directly testing whether they could read, understand and use written information. The measure used the proportion of 15 to 24-year-olds who had not completed primary education as a proxy for illiteracy. Someone who completed primary school was therefore effectively assumed to have met the literacy threshold.

That's important because modern discussions about literacy increasingly focus not only on whether someone can recognize words or write a simple sentence, but whether that person can understand what they read, extract information, follow written instructions and apply that information in everyday life.

The 2022 Census did not answer the question

St. Maarten carried out another Population Census in 2022, providing an opportunity to update a wide range of information about the population. The published findings contain extensive education statistics, including school participation and the highest levels of education completed, but they do not provide a new national literacy rate comparable with the 93.8 percent figure from 2011.

Among residents no longer attending school, the Census reported that 10.6 percent had primary education as their highest completed level, 54 percent had secondary education and 21.2 percent had tertiary education. Those figures tell us something important about educational attainment, but educational attainment and literacy are not the same thing.

The international picture is no clearer. UNESCO's current education profile for St. Maarten reports no data for the indicator measuring the proportion of the population achieving a fixed level of proficiency in functional literacy. The World Bank's international literacy database similarly does not provide a current adult literacy figure for the country.

In other words, St. Maarten can talk about literacy as a priority without currently being able to answer one of the most basic questions associated with that priority: what percentage of our population can actually read and comprehend at an adequate level?

The first real warning signs are coming from children

What St. Maarten does have now is something potentially more useful than the old headline literacy rate. Through the Early Grade Reading Assessment and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment, the country has begun measuring what young children can actually do.

The first round involved pupils across 17 primary schools. The reading assessment examined skills including letter and word recognition, comprehension and phonemic understanding. The results showed significant weaknesses. Only 6 percent of pupils were classified at the mastery level in oral reading fluency, while large differences were recorded between schools. Some schools had more than 80 percent of pupils reaching literacy mastery on assessed components, while others recorded levels as low as 36 percent.

A later Trust Fund report highlighted another concern. Children could often decode words and read them aloud, but understanding what they had read was more difficult. The report also found that an extraordinary 88 percent of the variation in student performance was associated with differences between schools. A second national round of assessments followed in June 2025.

These findings do not mean that only 6 percent of St. Maarten's children can read. The assessment measured specific early-grade skills against defined mastery benchmarks. But the results do show why a simple national literacy percentage can create false comfort. A person can technically read words while still struggling with comprehension.

Language complicates everything

St. Maarten's multilingual reality adds another layer. According to the 2022 Census, 70.6 percent of households primarily speak English, while 13.2 percent primarily speak Spanish, 7.8 percent Creole and only 3 percent Dutch.

The early learning assessments exposed how this plays out in schools. Among pupils attending English-instruction schools, 77 percent spoke English at home. In Dutch-instruction schools, however, just 16 percent spoke Dutch at home.

That does not automatically mean Dutch-language education produces poorer readers. It does mean that literacy policy on St. Maarten cannot be separated from language policy. Children may be learning to read in a language that is not the language they hear most often around the dinner table, on the playground or in their community.

Government appears to recognize the issue

There are signs that St. Maarten is moving toward better measurement. The country's Youth Monitor framework specifically includes functional literacy and numeracy among youth aged 15 to 18 as an indicator. Significantly, the framework lists a population-based skills survey as the planned data source for a later implementation phase.

Government has also invested in reading promotion. In April, 32 educators and education professionals participated in the Leeskracht training initiative aimed at strengthening reading culture, while the Dame Ruby Bute National Short Story Contest has been used to encourage reading, writing and creative expression among young people.

Those initiatives have value, but promotion and measurement serve different purposes. Encouraging children to read is important. Knowing whether they can read with understanding is equally important.

Literacy Month should also be about the numbers

St. Maarten may very well have a high literacy rate. The 93.8 percent figure from 2011 suggests that basic literacy was already widespread. But a country should not have to rely on a 15-year-old statistic to describe one of the most important abilities of its population.

More importantly, the definition of success has changed. The question is no longer simply whether people can read and write. It is whether children can understand what they read, whether adults can navigate increasingly complicated written and digital information, and whether the education system is producing those skills consistently across every school.

Perhaps that is the larger opportunity presented by Literacy Month. Along with celebrating books, writers and reading, St. Maarten can begin demanding something more fundamental: a clear, current and nationally representative picture of how well its people can actually read.

Because before we can confidently say St. Maarten is a literate society, we should first be able to measure it.

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